Mehdi Bazargan

Mehdi Bazargan (1 September 1907-20 January 1995) was Prime Minister of Iran from 4 February to 6 November 1979, succeeding Shapour Bakhtiar and preceding Mohammad-Ali Rajai. Bazargan was a progressive and a moderate, and he resigned from office after recognizing his failure to prevent the Iran hostage crisis.

Biography
Mehdi Bazargan was born in Tehran, Iran on 1 September 1907 to a family of Shia Muslim Azeris, and he was educated in France. Bazargan volunteered in the French Army during World War II to fight against Nazi Germany, and he became an engineer upon returning to Iran. During the 1950s, he served as a deputy minister and head of the National Iranian Oil Company, and he co-founded the liberal Freedom Movement of Iran. On 4 February 1979, after the success of the Iranian Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini chose Bazargan to serve as Prime Minister. Bazargan opposed the implementation of Islamism in the constitution and favored democracy over a theocracy, and he resigned in November 1979 after failing to prevent the Iran hostage crisis. Bazargan would oppose the Iran-Iraq War and the role of clerics in politics, the economy, and society, and he died in Switzerland in 1995 while heading to the United States for heart surgery.